


So It Goes (poo tee weet)

by imbellarosa



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-27 06:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18190673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbellarosa/pseuds/imbellarosa
Summary: There is no real mystery to love, he learns. Slowly, at first, in fits and stutters and stops and stumbles, but one day, he opens his eyes and says oh. Oh, I’m home. And then he meets his girlfriend’s eyes, and he realizes what has happened and everything goes to hell in a handbasket, and so he forgets.ORLife is made up of snapshots. Here are a few of theirs.





	So It Goes (poo tee weet)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i wrote this between episodes 8 and 9 so it's a bit off from the canon, but also then i just kinda made up the rest of it so oh well! this has not been beta'd, but i am looking for one! *SPOILER: Also, I didn't put major character death in the tags because even thought they do technically die, it's after a long life. I felt like it would be saying "i'm gonna die"... i mean, i am, but hopefully not for a long time yet. END SPOILER*
> 
> This one's name is from Slaughterhouse 5. It is one of my favorite books 10/10. Thank you for reading!

> _ 'Here is my hand, my heart, _
> 
> _ my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated _
> 
> _ cities at the center of me, and here is the center _
> 
> _ of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we _
> 
> _ can drink from, but I can’t go through with it. _
> 
> _ I just don’t want to die anymore.' _
> 
> _ \- Richard Siken, "Saying your names"  _

 

He dies. That’s the end of the story. One morning, Quentin opens his eyes, and the next moment he does not. But we aren’t there yet. 

There is no real mystery to love, he learns. Slowly, at first, in fits and stutters and stops and stumbles, but one day, he opens his eyes and says  _ oh _ .  _ Oh, I’m home _ . And then he meets his girlfriend’s eyes, and he realizes what has happened and everything goes to hell in a handbasket, and so he forgets. 

***

When the monster slides up to him with shivers and cold sweats, he starts. It is Eliot’s face that he sees, and he can’t ever remember seeing him like that before. He does, of course, remember the addiction. How he didn’t even bother hiding it - he was a Magician, he could get as much as he wanted whenever he wanted and he knew it and so. And so he did. And Quentin had known that it was bad - he had known others who had fallen down that hole and ended up in the hospital with him. Still - looking back, there had been one minute when Eliot had seemed to be teetering on the edge of - something, and the next he was a King, looking every bit the part. 

He had never thought of the in-between; the nights that he had been alone and screaming at his demons and his whole world must’ve been falling in. Quentin does not go back to sleep. 

***

“Look,” Julia says one day not long after the incident with the dragon egg. “I’m sorry. This sucks. But it sucks for all of us. You can’t give up on me yet, okay?”

“It - I’m not,” he looks at her. “I was. I know, but I’m not. I promise.”

She looks at him with those piercing eyes and pensive look she’d had since she was twelve years old, and she nods.

“Okay, then. Let’s get to work.”

***

Margo smacks him when he tells her that Eliot is still alive.

“Why didn’t you fucking  _ tell me _ ,” she shrieks, while Josh hovers silently, half protective, half wary. 

“I - you were in Fillory. And we were trying to fix it. But then - we had to be here. I just - I thought we would have figured something out before now.”

“ _ No _ ,” she practically stamps her foot, “look Q, I don’t know what bullshit romcom drama is going on between you two, but he is my  _ best friend _ , and you tell me this shit  _ first _ .  _ You get me _ ?”

He does. He can see Fen smiling through her tears out of the corners of his eyes. He might not have known Fen very well, but she had made Eliot a better ruler and a better man. He did love her for it. He wonders vaguely if she’s still going to be married to Eliot, or if she’s now Margo’s wife, and what the fuck the whole Josh situation is. 

“So how are we gonna fix this,” Margo draws herself up to her full height, looking every bit the King that she was always meant to be. 

***

When he is asked if he wants to be a father, his first thought is,  _ I already am _ . And then he takes a moment and realizes that this isn’t true. He doesn’t know if Teddy was ever real in a world where he and Eliot don’t go back to the Fillory-that-was. 

Sometimes, he remembers the lullabies and the sleepless nights and everything that comes with being a good father. He remembers watching his son fall in love, and remembers watching him leave, scared to death that this was the last he would see of him. He remembers his son as a child, crying when his mother died, and then again at Eliot’s funeral, holding him as he cried.  

Sometimes he does not. And on those days, he repeats the names again and again: Arielle, Teddy, Eliot. Quentin. And then just Teddy and Eliot and Quentin, and then just Eliot and Quentin, and then just him. Just Quentin. 

In this life, that would break his heart. In that one, he had still been able to sleep. These days, he just sits and looks at the night sky.

***

When Eliot comes back, he’s quiet. On the first night, he looks at Quentin and says, “I’m gonna be brave, okay? Just not tonight.”

And then he sobs. Quentin holds him like that night in his memories. 

In the morning, they talk, and there are still words missing, there will always be words missing, but it is enough. Margo can’t say that she is surprised, though it does not make her particularly happy. 

“You’re always going to be number one,” Quentin tells her one day, after bringing Eliot back to Fillory to see if it helps him. “He’s always going to have loved you first, and he’ll always love you best.”

“I know,” she says, turning her head so he can’t see the tears welling. Fucking opium. 

“Yeah,” he says softly, and hugs her from behind. “Just wanted to remind you.” 

***

Most nights, Eliot wants to take his pills more than he does not. Fucking immortal gods who fuck up your sobriety.  He knows that Quentin has scoured every inch of his room looking for pills and wards and places to hide. But Eliot’s powerful, and he had been very good at this at one point. He knows where he’s got pills left. 

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he goes and sits on the stairs, and he thinks about going to get them. He thinks about the way the voices all scream in his head and how he feels small and insignificant and he  _ doesn’t want to feel like that _ . 

_ It’s okay _ , there is a voice in his head, and it sounds a bit like Margo.  _ You’re not a fucking idiot. Don’t make me lose you. Make the smart choice _ .

And so he climbs the stairs again, and he curls up close to Q, who slides closer to him in his sleep, seeking warmth, and comfort, and love.  _ Or maybe that’s just me, _ he thinks. Quentin groans, and Eliot can’t help but smile. He doesn’t sleep, still, but it’s a close thing.

***

Alice comes back, eventually, and she does so with her head held high, expecting reproach. Eliot hugs her. He’s tired of blaming people, and he’s made so many mistakes himself. She cries, and then he cries, and then they have a cocktail. When Quentin comes back, they’re both a bit tipsy and giggling. 

“Uhh,” he stares. “What’s going on?”

They laugh harder. He shrugs and goes upstairs. Life is....better. And that’s good enough for now.

***

Penny - their Penny - comes back. They don’t really know how, and he’s not saying anything, but one day he shows up at the apartment in his grey suit. Quentin doesn’t remember him gentle, but the man in front of him is. He is wise, and kind, and knows more than he will ever tell them. When Kady sees him, she cries. 

Since he had died, she had fallen in and out of love a few times, before deciding that she was best as a leader, and a sister, and a friend. He was the one person they never thought they would get back, and then he did. And what do you do with that? He had said that the library was his destiny, and he’d walked away from it.

For a while, it’s hard. Kady isn’t mad at him, per se, but she shies away from him. He takes in stride. He moves into the apartment, and he’s quiet. He reads a lot. No one asks if he misses the Library. After everything, no one really wants to know. Sometimes he disappears for weeks at a time, coming back thinner and worn and exhausted. Years later, Kady will go with him. So it goes. 

***

In the years to come, there will be more crisis. They will be separated and lives will be risked and people will die and then they will come back because they’re too stubborn to just disappear. And it will be okay. Really. It will be. 

And then Julia will get married. To Penny23, of all people. It’s kind of an awkward wedding. A goddess and a traveler. A carbon copy of a man who is with another woman. 

“I give them five years,” Eliot whispers in Quentin’s ear.

“Really,” he’s kind of surprised.

“Mhmm,” Eliot replies. “That’s roughly how long we have until our next apocalypse. And it’s his turn to die.”

It’s not funny, but it kind of is, and Quentin starts giggling loudly. Both Pennys glare at him angrily. His wards are never gonna be any good. But Julia catches his eye and puts her hand to her mouth to hide a smile. 

***

To everyone’s surprise, Alice becomes a mother first. Dean Fogg calls her when a baby is found a Brakebills. She takes the little girl in without a second thought. Quentin thinks about all of the ' _ could have been's. _ It  _ could have been _ theirs. They  _ could have been  _ good together. Her baby  _ could have  _ had his eyes. And he thinks about it, one afternoon a week after she adopts the child. He is alone that day, and it is raining, and he thinks about the life he had thought that he wanted when he was twenty-five. 

And then Margo comes in with a batch of Josh’s muffins, and Julia stops by for a cup of tea, and Eliot comes home at the end of the day, and it’s so different than he thought it would be, his life, but he wouldn’t change a thing. 

Alice names the little girl Charlotte. They all call her Charlie.

***

And in this way, life goes on. Years pass, and then decades, and then they are old men again. One day, Eliot does not wake up. He is the first to go, and then Kady. Both Pennys pass on within a week of each other. Penny40 says that he has some unfinished business to take care of, and everyone knows that he’s going back to work. And then Q. The night before, he calls Julia.

“I love you,” he tells her. “I have loved you all of my life.”

“I know Q,” she says, her voice still young. “I will love you for all of mine.”

The last thing he thinks is,  _ we could have solved it twice  _ and  _ thank you _ . 

***

The next morning, the birds are singing. Poo tee weet. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you liked it; I know this style is more expositionary, but I kinda like imagining the rest of their lives and don't know how to write a novel about it so I write snapshots? Maybe i can expand some of these moments later?? Idk let me know which ones you'd like to read in further detail! come say hi at imbellarosa.tumblr.com! <3


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